The appointment with the cardiologist was for an echocardiogram he needed before taking me off a beta blocker that was causing asthma attacks. He is a fey, lanky man with wild white hair and looks scarily like Christopher Lloyd in “Back to the Future.”
He sat beside me, lying on an examining table in the darkened room in front of a large brightly lit computer screen divided by two images, one of my beating heart and the other, a close-up of my dancing mitral valve. As he moved the sensor over my gel-smeared breast with one hand, he played on the computer keyboard dramatically with his other. Leaning back on his stool, he studied the screen with intensity and thrust his arm in the air, his forefinger pointed at the ceiling and zoomed down on a key with a satisfied “ah-ha.” He was a wild-eyed Liberace playing a Beethoven piano sonata. This went on for an interminably long time. I kept my eyes fixed on my screen heart, but the one inside me was sinking with despair. I thought I’d gone down the rabbit hole and was at the mad hatter’s table.
As he finished, he fussed about, looked perplexed and after a long pause, he told me he’d work that night to find the right treatment for my “elastic mitral valve with a small bit of leakage.” He promised he would call me on Monday, or Tuesday, or the beginning of the week, or before the end of the week to tell me what he decided— he said this at least three or four times.
I know it’s not going to happen.
The results of the test are going to end up on his office floor in one of the many foot-high piles of papers and files that covered not only the floor but every surface in the room, the windowsills, shelves, even the sink. It was an astonishing scene to encounter that morning when we arrived for the appointment and wound our way to the chairs at his desk. It had been several years since I had seen him, returning because of the asthma. It was a bizarre contrast with my first appointment five years before. He was then a poised and attractive gentleman who told me in perfect English that he had practiced cardiology on Long Island outside New York City and was married to an American physician. There were only a few piles of French and American medical journals on his floor, stuffed with page markers. It was impressive instead of weird. A gradual change over the intervening visits , mostly absent- mindedness, indicated that all was not right with the cardiologist, but nothing like this.
Eager to escape and somewhat alarmed, we finished up quickly with the secretary. As we were gathering our things at the counter, the cardiologist skipped out to the reception room, did a little arabesque and a bow in front of me, and skipped back without a word. I couldn’t help giggling as I rushed out the door, as much from discomfort as the absurdity.
When I reported the experience to my regular doctor, he threw up his hands and said, “You’ll never hear from him” He gave me a referral to another cardiologist.